Marvel Rivals Fans React To Surprise Fee For Changing Costume Colors

Marvel Rivals has found success in the competitive online gaming space where many others have failed, often catastrophically. It has managed to carve a place for itself in this crowded segment, raking in big time revenue for its publisher, NetEase. However, its player base hasn’t always been happy with the design decisions being made, and the latest move is drawing plenty of ire.

In a post on X, NetEase detailed an upcoming update that will allow players to change the color of their character’s skin. “Customized Color Costumes will cost 600 Unstable Molecules for exchange. Unstable Molecules can be exchanged from Lattice at a 1:1 rate.” With this exchange rate someone looking to change the color of a skin they already paid for will cost about $6.


This upcoming update will have a very limited rollout to start. Only four characters can be customized, which include Luna Snow, Psylocke, Magik, and Winter Soldier. Additionally, players won’t be able to choose whatever color they want, just the colors being offered by NetEase. At the very least the new color will be reflected in emotes, intro animations and MVP animations.

As expected, gamers are less than impressed with having to pay extra for such limited customization, especially when skins already cost between $15 and $20. One user on the Marvel Rivals subreddit posted, “very misleading from Netease. It's 4 skin recolours. There's no way to "customize". You'd be forgiven for thinking you could change the colour of your skin to whatever you choose based on this bit of marketing. Disappointing.” Several other users shared a similar sentiment in a thread that has now surpassed 1,000 comments.

While many are disappointed, so long as the number of players isn’t affected by the decisions NetEase is making, it will likely continue to devise ways to juice revenue.